Is "No Child Left Behind" History?

Friday morning, ten years after the Bush administration’s landmark attempt to revamp the nation's education system with the No Child Left Behind law (by 2014 be proficient in math and reading), President Obama proposed to allow states to opt out of the heavily criticized guidelines. He believes education standards needs to be redifined and the focus should be on preparing students to be college and career ready. The law, which passed with broad bipartisan support in 2001, required public schools to meet targets aimed at making all students proficient in reading and math by 2014 or face stiff penalties. Obama's new proposal is that states and districts will have to set basic guidelines to evaluate a teacher's performance based on a number of factors, not simply student performance. The purpose is not to give states and districts a reprieve from accountability, but rather to unleash energy to improve our schools at the local level,” President Obama said in a statement released by the White House. One of the major criticisms of the current No Child Left Behind guidelines is that it encouraged schools to lower standards rather than improve.The new guidelines "should reduce the pressure to teach the test and the narrowing of the curriculum," one administration official said. Some critics fear the new guidelines will give the federal government an even larger role in state's education decisions, but Obama administration officials deny the accusation maintaining the new guidelines will actually give states more flexibility including how to spend 20% of their Title I money, which funds low-income education and can account for as much as one billion dollars nationwide.